re: How much of a joke is it that Star Wars was ever thought to be equal to Lord of the Rings?

BamaSaint, Star Wars is effectively dead, dude, and everyone agrees. Yes the original and Empire Strikes Back are the tits, and yes the Throne Room Sequence in RotJ is amazing, but outside of that, it’s just been beaten into submission and is done and overrated.

I will probably show my kids Star Wars one day, but outside of the Original Trilogy (and possibly Episode III) it will not exist as far as they’re concerned just so they can love it as much as I did. The rest has made me a cynical person.

But Lord of the Rings is impervious to this damage, which is why I think it’s a joke to say Star Wars is better. There is nothing Tolkien’s descendants, Amazon, or anyone else can do to harm it. If humanity is nearly wiped out tomorrow and we replenish in 5,000 years, there’s little doubt that the Lord of the Rings will be found and translated and be renowned as we currently renown the Epic of Gilgamesh.

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Then Disney happens where we’ve gotten maybe three OK films,

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Which films even reached "OK" level?

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Threads like this are why nobody likes you

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Some of you take this board way too serious

These movies are different.

Star Wars is dead to me.
Waiting anxiously for Dune Messiah.
The LOTR trilogy still holds its ground.
The hobbit trilogy is weak at best.
Will not watch woke middle earth.

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If you talk about Sauron, Mordor, the One Ring, Orcs, or Gollum, everyone knows what you’re talking about.

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I just spent the day with my twin 12 year old nephews. I asked them about LOTR and they were like…wut. Granted, they’re more into sports than reading…


Ask them about Star Wars though and they’ll quote the whole OT trilogy. I LOVE Star Wars but the LOTR trilogy is superior filmmaking wise, But when it comes to pop culture impact and purely filmmaking (not the books) the fact is that way, way more people know Darth Vader and “I am your Father” And considering most males hardly read anymore, I’d argue the impact from Star Wars is pretty close to the cultural and bibliographic impact of the Lord of the Rings, despite a damn near 30 year head start.

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I just spent the day with my twin 12 year old nephews. I asked them about LOTR and they were like…wut. Granted, they’re more into sports than reading…

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Yeah… they’re 12. Lord of the Rings requires an attention span. I was introduced to it at 13, although I read the Hobbit earlier. Ask them five years from now and they’ll know what you’re talking about. Hell ask them next year or two years from now and I bet it’s different. They’re right at that age where they’ll start loving Lord of the Rings.

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And considering most males hardly read anymore, I’d argue the impact from Star Wars is pretty close to the cultural and bibliographic impact of the Lord of the Rings, despite a damn near 30 year head start.

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They’re definitely close in pop culture impact. I’d honestly say Star Wars is probably higher on this, but Lord of the Rings is more intellectually so. The themes in Lord of the Rings age better than Star Wars does.

300 years from now barring obvious nuclear apocalypse, I have no doubt people will still know Lord of the Rings. I doubt they’ll know Star Wars though.

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Baw. If you approached 100 random people on the street and asked them if they knew what book / movie Sharon, Gollum, and Frodo were in

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Sharon?

EDIT: Was that auto corrected from Sauron? I mean, maybe Darth Vader may be in the more common vernacular as pure evil… but Sauron would clearly be the #2 most instantly known as that at worst under Vader or Satan. And Vader has been undermined with that given his arc, to where I still think Sauron would be the character most instantly identifiable as evil that people would say.

And the One Ring is the most obvious metaphor to the temptation and destruction of power. It’s just brilliant where that symbolism will stand the test of time where no matter what ultimate power is there, it will always be embodied by the One Ring.

Referring to "Star Wars", I'm considering that as the original trilogy. There's too much secondary and tertiary stuff fixed to that (good and bad) for me to compare the entire menu to a small franchise like LOTR.

If we're looking at them as "original works", LOTR wins hands down. Star Wars is a derivation of two many other franchises for it to stand up to the Tolken novels.

But as a series of three films... I'll watch Star Wars/Strikes Back/Return on a 24 hour loop (and have done so) but have never had the desire to rewatch a minute of LOTR. Star Wars and its two sequels each have their own distinct feel while remaining one cohesive story. LOTR just seemed like one long slog to me.